Islandhome #51

==ISLANDHOME #51==

February 18th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Islandhome Online: Website next week! Eeee
Conflux Legends: A review of Conflux's EDH general material.
Epic Prerelease: A new game to check out this Sunday.

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($11 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: PTQ Honolulu in New Jersey
Saturday: Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1 PM

==ISLANDHOME ONLINE==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Next week, for Islandhome's one-year anniversary, I'll be launching Islandhome's website! It'll be a great change from this email newsletter, and will include things like user-submitted articles, a message board for organizing events and talking about the Long Island metagame, and more! I'll send out a notice when it's up!

==CONFLUX LEGENDS==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Another set, another batch of cards to look through for your EDH decks! Now there's five legendary creatures in this small set, but do any of them make the cut as potential EDH generals? Let's see:

Child of Alara - If your general would be put into a graveyard from play, you may remove it from the game instead. It's one of the most commonly used rules in EDH, so common in fact that no one ever opts to put their general into their graveyard on purpose... unless it has a good enough effect like Child of Alara. The Kid can be RFG'd and plopped into your library, but if your opponents don't have that option, they'll have to kill him and have all their stuff wiped out as well. He's five colors, so a five-color reanimator deck would be a good home for him.

Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer - There are certain card names that catch my eye when I see them, and when Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer showed up on the list of card names accidentally leaked a few months ago, I knew he'd be blue-white, and I knew he'd be involved with drawing cards... I just didn't think he'd give them to your opponent. As a 2/2, he's just going to die turn after turn, and if his bribes worked even after he left play, he'd be better.

Malfegor - Bolas's kid is pretty good, if you can build around him. There's a lot of card drawing, madness effects, and graveyard recursion in black, so maybe you won't mind discarding all those cards to decimate everyone else's creatures. Plus he's a 6/6 dragon, and the son of an Elder Dragon.

Progenitus - Protection from everything, including being a good EDH general. Even in EDH, he's almost entirely uncastable, and that protection from everything doesn't stop mass removal, which will probably be online by the time you get the mana to play him.

Rakka Mar - Ms. Mar's a limited bomb, true, but she's got too many strikes against her for EDH general purposes: she's mono-red, she's a 2/2, and her ability isn't the stuff generals are made of. Putting a 3/1 into play isn't good enough on a weak 2/2 to justify limiting yourself to one color. If you're looking for good mono-red generals, there's Heartless Hidetsugu and Kiki-Jiki, the latter of which is worth the fragile 2/2 body.

==EPIC PRERELEASE==

Author: Brian Paskoff

This Sunday at Brothers Grim, there's a prerelease for a new card game called Epic. It's made by some former high-level Magic players, and plays a lot like Type 4 Magic. Every spell is, well "epic"ally powerful, and everything costs either 1 or 0. I'll be there helping out and teaching people how to play, so come down if you want to try out a new game! Their website is epictcg.com, check it out!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA
April 4th - Iselin, NJ

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #50

==ISLANDHOME #50==

February 11th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Valentine's Day Massacre (on prices): Brothers Grim lowers their prices!
Confluxing Standard: Reviewing some of the hottest new cards from Conflux.

Wow, issue number 50!

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft at Brothers Grim ($11 entry) @ 7 PM
Saturday: <3>Standard Constructed at FNC ($5 entry) @ 1 PM

==VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE (on prices)==
Author: Brian Paskoff

Brothers Grim is slashing their prices on draft sets of Shards of Alara and Conflux! Draft sets (three packs) are $9, while entry fees for FNM have been lowered from $13 to $11! That's the lowest I've seen for any sanctioned booster draft (most places in the US charge upwards of $15), so it's a great time to come down to Grim and draft with us on Friday nights!

Speaking of FNM, the promo for this month is Myr Enforcer. Come win one this Friday, they make great Valentine's Day gifts for that special girl or guy in your life!

==CONFLUXING STANDARD==
Author: Brian Paskoff

With the whole schedule of set design at Wizards of the Coast, it takes a good long while for answers to the most popular decks to show up. Faeries has been dominating Standard since Morningtide, and it took four whole sets for the "answer cards" to show up. Wizards can't just print one answer and hope it sticks, because if it doesn't work it'll be three or four more sets before they can try again, and Faeries will be out of Standard at that point.

The first one up is Volcanic Fallout. As the spoiler evolved, this card changed from a sorcery to an instant and was immediately deemed a Fae-killer. Jund Charm was used in Ramp decks alongside Cloudthresher to combat both Kithkin decks and Faeries. While Volcanic Fallout is good, it just adds to the number of minor board sweepers in standard: Jund Charm, Firespout, Infest, and even Pyroclasm are all heavily played, and it's hard to say where Volcanic Fallout fits in. Obviously, if your metagame is dominated by Fae, Volcanic Fallout is a great sideboard card. Each of the minor board sweepers in Standard has their own strengths and weaknesses:

• Jund Charm is versatile, hurts reanimator decks, and can keep Kitchen Finks around for another go at persisting... but can't kill Stillmoon Cavalier, X/3s, or Burrenton Forge-Tenders.
• Firespout deals one extra damage so it can kill a Cloudgoat Ranger or doubly-pumped up Kithkin, but is sorcery speed and can be stopped with a Forge-Tender.
• Infest kills anything, including the problem creatures black and red can't usually deal with... but is sorcery speed.
• Pyroclasm can wipe out the turn one Figure of Destiny, turn two Wizened Cenn play before it becomes a problem, but it's sorcery speed and only deals two damage.
• Volcanic Fallout kills Fae and acts as a final Sudden Shock against control decks that have stabilized at low life because it's uncounterable... but not unpreventable.

The popularity of a new card will have everyone trying it out, and make life hard for Faerie players for weeks to come. Just don't get so sucked in by the shiny fresh-pack smell of Volcanic Fallout that you ignore your metagame!

Next, there's Scattershot Archer. 1/2s for G are rare, and the Archer was probably made to avoid getting picked off by a sideboarded-in Peppersmoke. Of course the real power of Scattershot Archer is its ability. With one tap, every Bitterblossom Token, Spellstutter Sprite, and Spirit token falls out of the sky. The Archer comes down on turn one, long before Faeries is ready with a Remove Soul. And if they tap out to Agony Warp it the turn after you play it, it's just another way Scattershot Archer saved you from a turn two Bitterblossom. However, being that it's only good against one tier one deck and one tier two deck (WB Tokens), I don't see it seeing serious play.

The last Fae-killer is the big one, Banefire. Being that I re-started playing Magic after a many-year hiatus around the tail-end of Ravnica block, I have many fond memories of Demonfire beating out the control decks of the time. While Demonfire was good, it required you to have no cards in hand to be truly devastating. And, it was used by one of the most dominate control decks of the time, Urzatron, which could ramp up its mana way faster than decks with lands that didn't tap for 3.

Banefire isn't so much of an anti-Faerie card as it is an anti-Cryptic Command card. When the best counterspell in years can't touch it, it's clearly an anti-control card. In fact, there are only three cards in the format that can deal with Banefire, and they're all red! Wild Ricochet, Shunt, and Swerve, to be precise. It's difficult to say for sure right now, but if Banefire becomes a problem, then one of these spells (most likely Swerve) will start to see some serious sideboard play.

Let's step away from the anti-control cards for a bit and get to the rest of the set. Every set's got those chase uncommons, and Conflux has a few goodies that will have you looking past the rares when you rip open a pack.

I'd feel like I'm neglecting something if I didn't talk about Path to Exile first, which is another one of those $3-4 uncommons (hello, Kitchen Finks). At one mana, Path is an amazing card, especially against decks that run zero or few basics, like Toast in Standard, Affinity in Extended, and... well, almost everything in Legacy and Vintage. There's really no discussion about the card's merits needed: you pay one white mana to make them trade their best creatures for a basic land, and that's that. One word of warning however: it'll take some players quite some time to get used to the idea that accelerating your opponent early on isn't a great idea. Already I've had players tell me that in their playtesting online, opponents have Path to Exiled their early drops on turn one or two. Without Tarmogoyf in Standard, there's really no reason you should ever want to do that.

Aggressive red-based decks get three attractive uncommons: Hellspark Elemental and Shambling Remains. Mono-red decks, what little there are left, have changed from mono-red to Rb, splashing black for things like Blightning, Thoughtseize out of the board, and sometimes Bitterblossom. Those decks will have little qualms about replacing Ashenmoor Gouger with Shambling Remains... although the possibility of a pumped-up Knight of Meadowgrain blocking it might. And that's basically the problem with Hellspark Elemental as well: It's a 3/1, and all sorts of bad things happen to 3/1's. The third card is the often-overlooked Goblin Outlander. Mono-red decks have had trouble with Kithkin ever since Blood Knight left Standard. Goblin Outlander doesn't have first strike, but against mono-white decks, it hardly matters.

Back onto more uncommons, Celestial Purge has to be one of the best sideboard cards in recent memory. It was just back in Shadowmoor that we got a spell that destroyed a black or red creature in combat, and now Wizards is printing cards that remove ANY black or red permanent from the game for the same two mana. It's just downright mean against Bitterblossom, Ajani Vengeant, Demigod of Revenge, and even Nicol Bolas.

And speaking of Nicol Bolas, it's a bit sad to see it being forced into decks where it doesn't fit. Obviously, it appears to be on the surface the perfect card for Five Color Control, but is it? Sure it feels great to take all those counters off Nicol Bolas and destroy your opponent's will to live, but compare it to Bolas's own Cruel Ultimatum: Cruel costs one less, "resolves" the same turn you play it, and can't be attacked, Oblivion Ringed, or burnt away. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is vulnerable to everything Cruel Ultimatum is... plus more. Of course, Cruel Ultimatum can't pick off or steal permanents, but since Nicol Bolas's first ability often is just an eight mana Stone Rain and his second isn't amazing against most creature-based decks in the format that rely on a lot of little creatures rather than big ones (and it delays his ultimate ability by many turns)... anyway, my point is that Nicol Bolas costs eight.

Five-color decks do get a bomb in Maelstrom Angel though; if it hits, playing a free Cruel Ultimatum is like... well, like taking nine counters off a Nicol Bolas. Playing ANYTHING for free in 5C is a good deal, from the lowliest Mulldrifter to a beefy Broodmate Dragon.

As for other rares, we finally have this block's Wrath of God: Martial Coup. Martial Coup, however, costs seven mana to be useful, while Wrath costs four mana. Among the cheap three-or-less mana board sweepers I mentioned above, the four mana Wrath of God is considered almost too expensive. Back in my day, we paid four or MORE mana to destroy all creatures... no, BURY all creatures! And we liked it! (Sorry, I just had a birthday and was reminded how old I was getting.) But anyway, if there was a block PTQ season, Martial Coup would see more play than a Pasgoyf, but since the only big block tournament is a Pro Tour, it will sadly only see play in niche decks.

There's a lot of buzz over Noble Heirarch, the new Birds of Paradise. It's nice to see a "Birds" that doesn't die to a Cloudthresher coming into play, but only time will tell if there's room for a one-mana mana-producing creature in Standard: Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elf didn't really see play before.

I love Thornling. Don't get me wrong, big splashy green creatures are a favorite of mine (I named myself after the best one, don't forget), but Thornling came in at just the wrong time. With Oblivion Ring, Unmake, and now Path to Exile all heavily played, indestructibility just isn't a big deal. It could see play, but it's not as earth-shattering as it could be without so much RFGing in the format.

Well that about wraps it up for this week's Conflux Standard review. I wish I had space to review the entire set, but I don't want to load up your computer with megabytes or whatever. Stay tuned for more reviews in later articles!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA
April 4th - Iselin, NJ

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY

Islandhome #49

==ISLANDHOME #49==

February 4th 2009

==IN THIS ISSUE...==

Conflux Limited Review

==THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE==

Friday: FNM Booster Draft (Alara-Alara-Conflux) at Brothers Grim @ 7 PM
Saturday: Conflux Launch Party at FNC @ 1 PM ($26 entry)

Immediately following the Launch Party on Saturday is the 26th Annual Paskoff's Birthday Paskoff Cube Draft event and possibly dinner, so stick around after the event for some fun times! My birthday's on Sunday, but we're celebrating Saturday night.

Also, there is no event Sunday at Brothers Grim due to a Yu Gi Oh state tournament or something of the like.

The official Islandhome website will be launching in the next 2-3 weeks, just in time for Islandhome's one year anniversary!

==CONFLUX LIMITED REVIEW==
Author: Brian J. Paskoff

The prerelease is over, and it was intenser than usual. Intenser's a word, right? Anyway, we had exactly 94 players at the prerelease, filling every seat we had. A grand total of twenty-seven teams also participated in Long Island's first Two-Headed Giant prerelease event in many years. People were very confused about the strange format, but everyone had fun. If you have any opinion on whether or not future Long Island prereleases stick with the traditional three-man teams or switch to Two-Headed Giant permanently, contact Gray Matter Conventions and let us know!

But the fun times with Conflux aren't over - there's a whole new weekend of Conflux fun, and with the set being legal for FNMs both Standard and draft on Friday, and Conflux release events this weekend (mine will be at Friendly Neighborhood Comics at 1 PM, see everyone there!), everyone's talking about what the new cards mean for constructed and limited.

For limited, nearly every card in the set is extremely powerful. When a set contributes only one pack to a booster draft and contains about a hundred cards less than the base set, it needs to have more bombs and less duds. Reviewing every card in the set would be quite tedious both for me and you, and while last week I talked about the various mechanics in the set, this week is all about the bombs - particularly the commons and uncommons, which is where the meat of your deck will lie. It's easy to tell that a rare or mythic is good for your deck, and it's easy to tell the ones you should ship to the next drafter. The other thirteen cards in the pack are the harder ones to choose from.

WHITE:

White's got a few playables in the lower rarities. Path to Exile isn't as much of a universal answer to everything as Oblivion Ring, but it's still amazing... just don't use it on an early drop, or you'll have your opponent accelerating into bigger threats than the one you removed. With the amount of multicolored creatures walking around, Celestial Purge might even be a high pick - and definitely sideboard material. White also has the best card in a cycle, a rare occasion; Gleam of Resistance is an excellent combat trick. +1/+2 is a big bonus, an giving your creatures vigilance - even a turn after you attacked - is well worth the five mana.

Stay away from Lapse of Certainty, it's certainly not as good as it looks on paper. It won't permanently deal with a threat. As a rule, I don't like to put cards into my limited decks when I can't guarantee they'll be useful 90% of the time I draw them. Asha's Favor is another one that looks better than it is; all the removal in the format makes playing Aura spells card disadvantage.

There's some strong creatures in white too. Aven Trailblazer is a very aggressive flier, being at least a 2/3 in every deck. Rhox Meditant is great if you're playing green, and passable if you're not. If you have the mana, Darklit Gargoyle can be good... though there are a lot better choices for fliers. After that there's not too much to write about: a too-expensive flier with a shroud ability that'll never be relevant, a Wall of Roots that can attack, another exalted dude, etc.

BLUE:

Card drawing, bounce, and counterspells are what you'd expect from blue spells, and you'd be right! Blue's basic landcycler isn't terrible, and for once makes a counterspell playable in limited. Worldly Counsel can be absurdly powerful in five-color decks, and what's bad about an almost-Impulse in a shard-based deck? And then there's Unsummon, which is... Unsummon. What can you say about a card as old as Magic itself?

For creatures, Esperzoa has some cute tricks to pull with Faerie Mechanist, which is another strong creature in an Esper-based deck. Speaking of artifact creatures, Scornful Aether-Lich is strong, even if fear isn't as relevant as it would be in other sets, and Parasitic Strix is yet another in a long line of playable three-mana two-power fliers. Brackwater Elemental might be worth the risk if your deck is aggressive enough, and that about wraps it up for blue's dudes.

BLACK:

Black has one good spell at common/uncommon, and that's Drag Down. Every other spell in the lower rarities is beyond awful, and if you have a common or uncommon instant, sorcery, or enchantment in your deck and it's not Drag Down you've done something horribly wrong.

Creatures though, black's got it good. Sedraxis Alchemist is nearly always just as good as Man-o-war, and if you've got the mana, Fleshformer is incredible. But where black really shines (ha) is Grixis Slavedriver, my favorite creature in the set for limited. It's at least two, and usually three and a half creatures in one. Unless it's removed from the game, it swings for four from the yard and leaves a zombie behind after it makes that final swing.

RED:

Red's got burn. It's also got a straight-up "destroy target creature" spell, and you don't see that printed on a red card too often. Sure Dark Temper requires you to have a black permanent, but that's easy enough to do. Fiery Fall's expensive, but it's got landcycling, so definitely playable. And then there's Ignite Disorder, a very powerful sideboard card that's almost maindeck material. Volcanic Fallout also joins Infest as a first pickable uncommon mass removal spell.

Red's creatures however are on the weak side. Wandering Goblins requires a heavy mana commitment, Dragonsoul Knight does as well (though it's certainly not terrible without the mana to pump it), Canyon Minotaur is good but oh-so-vanilla, and Toxic Iguanar is too killable to rely on. Viashino Slaughtermaster is very playable, and red gets so few Bears without drawbacks. Kranioceros is very good if you can reliably pump it, but expect to need to do so the turn you play it.

GREEN:

I want to skip over the spells and get right to the good stuff, but Might of Alara is actually good, and Spore Burst miiiiight be playable in a five-color deck. Nothing else is terribly worth mentioning; Filigree Fracture is a good sideboard card, of course.

But green has the best creatures, like Matca Rioters, a 3/3 for 2G... or a 5/5 for 2G. As I mentioned last week, Gluttonous Slime is a great combat trick, letting you sacrifice doomed creatures mid-combat. Ember Weaver would have been good as a 2/3 with reach for 2G, but with the potential to also have +1/+0 and first strike, it's astounding. Sacellum Archers can make combat tricky for your opponent as well as having a good body. And Beacon Behemoth and Wild Leotau are yet more cheap 5-power creatures.

MULTICOLOR:

The stars of the set are the multicolored cards. After feeling somewhat shoehorned into a shard for the first two packs of Shards of Alara, all the mana fixing in Conflux makes nearly anything splashable. There's only four multicolored non-creature spells at common and uncommon: first off, Countersquall. It's a counterspell, and doesn't hit creatures, the most important spells in limited, so save it for the sideboard against opponents with lots of removal. Exploding Borders is fantastic acceleration, and one of the few spells in the format that lets you accelerate lands into play. Of course the Tribal Flames effect to your opponent's face doesn't hurt either. Elder Mastery almost literally turns any creature into Nicol Bolas (the old school one, not the planeswalker), but like most Auras, the risk of card disadvantage isn't always worth the gamble... but Elder Mastery could pay off. Hmm. Lastly, there's Suicidal Charge. It's expensive, and the effect is very situational. I haven't seen anyone really attempt to play it yet, mostly for its expensive cost, but the effect is an interesting one.

The "protection bears" in Conflux are definitely nice. With everyone playing at least three colors, chances are your 2/2 will be safe from at least a third of your opponent's creatures. Fusion Elemental can be powerful in the right deck. It's not worth stretching your manabase to accomodate it, but if you're already in five colors, you can't say no to a cheap 8/8 with no drawback.

If you're heavy on the artifacts (and what Esper deck isn't?) you've got Sludge Strider. The life drain really adds up, especially during a stalemate. Esper Cormorants is another powerful Esper creature, sort of a lesser Tower Gargoyle. Shambling Remains is Ashenmoor Gouger's cousin, and unearth makes it even better. Then there's Knotvine Mystic, a powerful accelerator - drop it turn three, and with a land drop you have six mana on turn four. Naya's new best friend is Vagrant Plowbeasts, nearly just as good as Spearbreaker Behemoth and waaaay easier to pick up in draft. Hellkite Hatchling's a bomby flier as well, even though it requires at least one sacrifice to make it good.

LANDS:

Ancient Ziggurat: It's sort of hindered by the fact that it won't help you cast the 5-7 non-creature spells in your deck, so it's not terribly useful.

Reliquary Tower: Absolutely useless in limited, especially when your manabase needs to be consistent.

Rupture Spire: So glad this is common! It's one of the best mana fixers in the set.

Unstable Frontier: Functionally, this is just as good as Shimmering Grotto from a few sets ago, with one key difference: It helps out your domain spells too!

ARTIFACTS:

There's two solid mana fixers and one average one; Armillary Sphere and Mana Cylix fit into nearly every deck, while Kaleidostone doesn't really do much for you if you're not going five-color. It does replace itself however. The other two artifacts at these rarities are equipment. Manaforce Mace is perhaps too expensive for its own good, but the at-least +3/+3 bonus makes it playable. Can't say that much for Bone Saw, which is absolutely 14th pick material.

And that wraps up the commons and uncommons. As I said before, it's relatively easy to tell when a rare's good in limited, but I've compiled a short list anyway, sorted into three sections: the "bombs" are first-picks if you're in those colors or can splash for them, "playables" are good, but are often third or fourth picks, and "jank" are the cards that should stay in the pack. I didn't place any worth on card value in dollar amounts; if you want a Progenitus for your protection from things deck, by all means, take it!

BOMBS: Obelisk of Alara, Extractor Demon, Cliffrunner Behemoth, Paleoloth, Meglonoth, Malfegor, Charnelhoard Wurm, Giltspire Avenger, Child of Alara, Magister Sphinx, Maelstrom Angel, Worldheart Phoenix, Voracious Dragon, Rakka Mar, Goblin Razerunners, Banefire, Ethersworn Adjucator, Scepter of Dominance, Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Martial Coup, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, Blood Tyrant, Thornling, Apocalypse Hydra, Sphinx Summoner, Obelisk of Alara.

PLAYABLES: Nyxathid, Cylian Sunsinger, Soul's Majesty, Noble Heirarch, Knight of the Reliquary, Exotic Orchard, Bloodhall Ooze, Inkwell Leviathan, Master Transmuter, Scepter of Insight, Telemin Performance, Wall of Reverence.

JANK: Conflux, Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer, Progenitus (uncastable), Sigil of the Empty Throne, Mark of Asylum.

======

Now I'm not the best drafter in the world by far, so if you have any comments on this article, let me know! Share your opinions on the bombs and duds in Alara-Conflux limited and I'll include them in next week's Islandhome!

==GUEST ARTICLES==
Author: Brian Paskoff

After a short break, Islandhome is once again accepting guest articles from our readers!

If you've got an article you'd like to submit, send it to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com. Try to keep it a reasonable length - there's no word limit, but look at previous Islandhome articles for guidance - and avoid bad language and personal insults. Also try to maintain good grammar and spelling; doesn't have to be perfect, but you should see how long it takes me to spellcheck the Madonia Minute every week!

I can't promise every submission will make it into the next week's Islandhome, but I'll try to get as many in as I can, especially ones that are relevant to a previous/upcoming event.

==THE ISLANDHOME BLOG==

One of the things I wanted to do was have an archive of past issues online so I could refer people back to them as well as let new readers peruse old issues to see what all the fuss is about. So I've archived all the old issues on the blogosphere at islandhomemtg.blogspot.com. Go and relive all the past moments of glory!

==UPCOMING EVENTS==

January 3rd - April 19th: PTQ Season for PT Honolulu

The next PTQ season kicks off January 3rd, and the format is Extended!

PTQs in our area this season:

February 21st - Edison, NJ
March 14th - Philadelphia, PA

No details for New York PTQs are available yet.

April 3rd - April 5th: I-Con 28
Magic events will once again be held at I-Con, which is at Suffolk Community College's Brentwood campus this year. I'll have news about what tournaments are going to be run as we get closer to April, but just like last time there'll be cheap drafts and constructed events all weekend long!

==STORE LOCATIONS & CONTACT INFO==

Brothers Grim
1244 Middle Country Rd.
Selden, NY 11784
Phone: 631-698-2805
Website: www.brgrim.com

Friendly Neighborhood Comics
19 Udall Rd.
West Islip, NY 11795
Phone: 631-470-7984

==FIN==

See everyone this weekend!

Got forwarded Islandhome and want to sign up? Send an email to IslandhomeMTG@gmail.com!

-Brian Paskoff
L1 NY